It found 87 per cent want any non-UK citizen convicted of a criminal offence to be deported. And 80 per cent want a set time limit for anyone wishing to claim asylum in Britain to make their application.

The survey, by Tory peer Lord Ashcroft, was designed to test support for potential Tory election policies from the party’s Right-wing.

But only 13 per cent backed the call for the August Bank Holiday to be renamed “Margaret Thatcher Day” and just one in four wanted to give employers the right to opt out of minimum wage legislation, to scrap the Department for Energy and Climate Change or to privatise the BBC.

Rather than play fantasy politics we need to respond to the country’s anxieties and aspirations.

Lord Ashcroft

Lord Ashcroft said the poll of more than 2,000 voters showed that radical plans alone were not enough to deliver a Parliamentary majority at the next election.

He said: “Rather than play fantasy politics we need to respond to the country’s anxieties and aspirations.”